


Life As We Know It

by captainodonewithyou



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, So yeah, anti-fluff, based on the movie life as we know it, but also firmly based in some fitzsimmons, like it'll become fluff but woah babe do you all have a storm comin first, primarily static quake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 18:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8928838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainodonewithyou/pseuds/captainodonewithyou
Summary: Daisy owns a bakery and is happiest tucked safe between the walls, where everything exists only exactly how she makes it.  But the real world is not quite as safe and measured -- and when tragedy strikes, she'll have to adapt to a life where there are no answers, is no normal, and everything has changed -- with only her equally stricken high-school ex and self-pronounced least-favorite-human at her side. Maybe, though - not everything needs a recipe to turn out alright.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theskyefalls (emmathecharming)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmathecharming/gifts).



She can feel how the night is settling in outside the wide café windows without turning around – there is something heavier about darkness in the winter, something more decided. She likes winter – but she likes it from the cozy warm glow of her café.

She isn’t sure of the time, aside from night. The ornate vintage clock on the wall above the sink is broken – it has been since long before she opened the little bakery. The former owner was someone taller than her, or someone who owned a ladder – and she has never really found the motivation to go through the numerous steps she imagines it will take to replace the batteries. It is just perpetually 7:39.

It is okay with her, though. Time passes differently when she is baking, anyway. She read something once, about time travel and wormholes, and she likes to think her bakery is her own private little time anomaly. A place she can go to escape the constant ticking of time pressing forward on the busy Chicago streets just past her little blue front door.

“Alright, guys,” she mutters, giving her floury hands a halfhearted dusting over the sink before retrieving the pan of scones she has just mixed with one hand – propping the oven open with the other. Hot air floods out, steamy on her skin – and she pushes the dough into the warm depths. “Do me proud.”

She gives the pan a final, solemn stare before swinging the oven shut behind it and reaching to set a timer on her phone.

_ 10:23PM _

She has one new text, and she reaches for a washcloth to rub some excess dough from between her fingers before she unlocks the device, opening the message.  It is from her best friend – a video clip of the little infant who is barely more than a few months old – decked out proudly in a tiny t-shirt proclaiming that she is a “ _ future scientist _ .”

_ “Just try a bite, love,” _ Jemma’s voice is muffled through her speakers, and by the fact that she is obviously hiding giggles in anticipation of what’s to come.  _ “Show Auntie Daisy how much you like her cooking.” _

She parts her little lips just enough for Fitz to coax a spoonful of the baby food she’d dropped off earlier into her tiny mouth. She considers the new development a brief moment before making a decision.

“Dammit, Maggie,” Daisy mutters, defeated, as the rosy-cheeked baby on her screen spits the mashed baby food dangerously near to the camera – to the great amusement of her laughing parents.

_ “Sorry, Daisy, it would seem my daughter is the one person in the world who doesn’t like your cooking. But by all means, keep trying—“ _ the video ends on Jemma’s blurred, giggling face, and Daisy sighs.

She scowls at the screen a moment more before dropping it back on the counter and glancing at the broken clock before setting her eye on the piled dirty dishes in her sink.

X

She leaves Elena in charge of the bakery the next morning with a groggy smile and a probably not entirely cohesive mutter about showing a certain baby who knows her cooking.  She packs a fresh batch of baby food she is pretty sure  _ she _ would eat into the passenger seat of her car and shivers beneath all her layers of scarves and gloves and jackets as she starts the engine and drives towards her friend’s beautiful suburban home.

Fitz opens the door on her third knock, and she smiles winningly, shoving the Tupperware of mashed food into his chest.

“I dare her to spit this out,” she tells him, triumphant, and he just sighs – curled hair stuck up in odd directions all over his head.

“She will,” he promises, “and then she’ll scream at you, just to be certain you feel nice ‘n poor about yourself.”

His eyes are rimmed with the dark circles of parenthood, and Daisy smirks.

“What an asshole.”

“Believe me, I know.”

She snorts, smirk growing wider.

“I meant you, for not letting me in,” she clarifies slowly through her grin, “but don’t worry, I won’t tell your wife that you just called your infant an asshole.”

He scowls at her, but steps aside, making way for her to step through the doorway and following her into the kitchen, where Jemma stands at Maggie’s high chair – hair nearly as disheveled as her husband’s – stained mug of tea in one hand, spoon in the other. The baby gurgles happily at her mother, eyeing the spoonful of canned mush with traitorous anticipation.

When Jemma sees Daisy, she deflates ever so slightly.

“Oh please, no food experimentation this morning. She’s just quieted down,” she pleads, taking a distracted sip of tea just as Maggie clamps happily down on the offensive store-bought food. “My brother will be here any moment – I promise we’ll get her to eat your food one day Daisy, but—“

“Wait, Lincoln is coming!?” Daisy snaps, dropping the Tupperware on the table and throwing a very direct scowl over her shoulder at Fitz, who is now circling around her and trading a soft kiss on Jemma’s brow for the empty spoon Maggie is now chewing thoughtfully on. “You didn’t think that might be good information to pass on, Fitz!?”

He peers up at her, eyes narrowed – scooping Maggie another bite of store-food with pointed grandeur.

“I tend to forget things when I’m being  _ blackmailed _ .”

Jemma sighs a long-suffering breath, taking another long draw of tea before pinching the space between her eyebrows and regarding Daisy with exhaustion.

“We’re all adults now, Daisy – my God, parents, even. Do you think it might be time for you and my brother to… I don’t know, bury the hatchet?”

Daisy scowls at her, somehow feeling more betrayed still.

“I am  _ not _ a parent, and I do not bury hatchets in anything but the heads of my enemies.”

She smirks at the sentiment in spite of herself and Jemma rolls her eyes as she reaches to grab the baby food she brought over before turning to tuck it into the fridge.

“Very mature. Please don’t murder my brother. Do you guys even remember why you can’t stand each other, or is it just by principle at this point?”

Jemma has wetted a cloth, now, and is scrubbing invisible stains off the edge of the countertop – she is good at that, Daisy thinks – good at washing away problems she does not even realize are there.

She is probably right – they were barely teenagers when they had dated and broke up, both too young to hold the failed relationship against the other still into adulthood.

“I still think you two could get on quite well, as a couple. If you both weren’t so bloody full of yourselves.”

Daisy sighs.

“Jemma, I love you, but you are going to need to accept that my life is not ever going to be –“ she hesitates, motioning widely at the calm domesticity pressing in from every wall around them – “ _ this _ .”

But Jemma doesn’t back down, eyebrow quirking in that determined way that tells Daisy she has hit the most unfortunate of stubborn chords.

“Of course it won’t be  _ this _ ,” she agrees, mirroring Daisy’s earlier motions. “ _ This _ is my life, it’s what makes me happy – of course it doesn’t make you happy, you dummy. But I know you, and I know you can only be happy alone for so long. What would you do if I weren’t here?”

Daisy feels her heart quirk just slightly at the notion, and she wrinkles her nose at Jemma.

“Are you planning on going somewhere I should know about?” she asks defiantly, and Fitz sighs.

“No, of course we’re not.” She pauses, but there is the slightest of nervous wrinkles across her brow. “I just… worry about you, Daisy. Since Trip…”

Daisy clears her throat, leaning up off of the counter and brushing past Jemma to open the fridge. She isn’t looking for anything in particular – just letting the door fall open and feeling the cool air wash over her is enough – and she takes a careful, slow breath before taking a glance around for show, and popping back out.

“I’m fine, Jemma. I don’t need you to worry about me. You have a kid to do that for, now.”

Fitz keeps his gaze pointedly on Maggie, but Jemma’s eyes are focused and concerned.

“Daisy—“

“I’m  _ fine _ .”

She steps towards Maggie’s high chair, taking the spoon and baby food from Fitz before elbowing him off to the side to take his spot feeding the little girl. She gurgles a hello in what she thinks is baby language, or at least close enough – as Maggie grins gummily and gurgles something in response, happily chomping on the spoonful of orange mush she offers out to her.

“Unbelievable,” she tells the baby.

“Ghhhaaak!” she tells her back.

Then there is a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” Jemma mutters, drawing her gaze reluctantly from Daisy. “Fitz, take Maggie back so Daisy can leave and we don’t start a second cold war.”

Fitz moves to oblige but Daisy is faster, scooping a gleeful Maggie up into her arms.

“Huh uh, I am her favorite relative and Lincoln is damn well gonna know it,” she tells him, and he groans – a pained, defeated noise.

“You are worse than the infant, I hope you know that.” He tells her, and she grins.

“Such high praise.”

She lifts Maggie up high in the air, and drops her back down, feeling triumphant when the little girl can’t contain a fit of giggles at the motion.

“I wouldn’t,” Fitz warns as he steps towards the front hall and the sitting room, glancing back and motioning for her to follow. “She’s been spitting up, lately.”

Daisy regretfully heeds the warning, holding her close and rocking her gently instead.

“Look at you,” she notes softly as they pass towards the couch, eyeing the orange-hued peach fluff sprouting on the little girl’s head, “that is a fine bit of hair you are growing there, you little overachiever.”

“I thought you were leaving,” Jemma interrupts, and Daisy looks up to finds Lincoln beside his sister on the couch, looking surprised at the sight of her.

She sticks her tongue out at him, briefly considering how the discussion about being an adult was entirely lost her.

“But I just got here, and Maggie didn’t want me to go,” she says, and Maggie, conveniently, coos in agreement. “See. She loves me.”

“Takes a child to know one, huh?” Lincoln notes with a smirk.

“You’d know,” she smiles back, and Fitz snorts.

Maggie grumbles something again as Lincoln stands up and approaches, holding out his arms for his niece. She doesn’t put up a fight, letting him take her wriggly little body into his arms instead.

“She’s a big fan of bouncing this morning,” she tells him with a winning smile, before filling his spot on the couch beside Jemma.

She leaves when she can’t bear to leave Elena to fend off the customers herself a moment longer, wrapping her scarf tight around her neck and pressing a soft kiss onto the red fluff atop Maggie’s head before heading for her car.

Jemma catches her with a hand around her wrist as she reaches the driveway.

“I’m sorry for bringing up Trip – for being so tense in general this morning. You know I don’t mean it, Daisy. I do worry, for you. Even though I shouldn’t. You’re family, I can’t help but care.”

Daisy smiles softly, genuinely, and pokes a gloved finger at that ever-present wrinkle between her best friend’s eyebrows. She has done it since they were little girls and Jemma worried herself sick over spelling tests and geography bees – nudging at the little wrinkle of anxiety, reminding her to relax and let the universe have a little control, too.

“Stop  _ worrying _ , Jemma. You’re right – I am an adult, and I’m doing okay for myself. Maybe not okay by your and Fitz’s ridiculously flawless standards – but by mine, and other normal, mortal, people – pretty damn well,” she smirks, and a tense laugh slips past Jemma’s guard, shaking her squared shoulders. She turns her wrist in her grasp so she can squeeze her hand, tight and reassuring. “And I am… getting over Trip. Of course it is hard, and you’re right – I’m struggling a little. But I’ll find someone. I just need to do it on my own time.”

When she squeezes her hand again, the tight lines in Jemma’s face softens into a light, still worried, smile.

“I’ll bring cinnamon scones, tomorrow,” she tells her, and the worry melts a little further away.

“Oh god, I love your cinnamon scones,” Jemma says wistfully.

Daisy grins, and tries again for her car – but Jemma is still holding tight to her hand.

“I guarantee the world can spin without you holding it up,” she tells her with a softer smile and a raise of an eyebrow. “Not easily, mind you – but it would figure it out eventually. You should let it try.”

She lets her get in the car this time, rolling her eyes but laughing.

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

X

It is, of course, 7:39 when she gets back to the bakery. Her phone buzzes as she pulls on her apron, and she pulls up the video of Maggie grimacing at her latest creation and spitting it full throttle at her parents.

_ “Back to the drawing board?” _ a grinning Jemma suggests, and Daisy rolls her eyes but smiles – slipping the phone back into her pocket and taking her place beside Elena in the front of the shop, thanking her for covering the whole morning.

She is finishing up the extra batch of scones as darkness presses in on the shop windows that night – but it is still 7:39, and it is still warm, and time is still pliable as dough between her fingers.

She notices her phone vibrating after she swings the oven door shut behind the batch.

_ Seven missed calls. _

_ 12:02AM _

The eighth call comes in while her skin is still prickling with unease, and she forces a finger that doesn’t feel like her own to accept the call, lifts the unbelievably heavy phone to her ear.

“Are you Daisy Johnson?”

“Yes.”

“…there’s been an accident.”


End file.
